


An Inconvenient Tail

by armouredescort



Category: Castlevania (Cartoon), 悪魔城ドラキュラ | Castlevania Series
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Mermaid Trevor Belmont, Mermaids, Multi, Transformation, tuna fish sandwich
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-25
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-07 19:36:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18239315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/armouredescort/pseuds/armouredescort
Summary: Trevor finds himself on the wrong end of a curse and up to his waist in scales.





	1. Chapter 1

When Sypha grumbled that Trevor smelt like he hadn't bathed in months, she was correct. He hadn't bathed in the sense of actually submerging himself in water, head and all, for years. He _had_ washed on a near daily basis, depending on his luck, whether he had enough water, and the time of year. Despite everything he didn't actually like smelling like sweat, blood, and all manner of fluids that were meant to stay inside the monster, but inevitably splattered all over him.

He also washed and mended his clothes, even if that meant sitting naked by a stream for a few hours. Yet he hadn't actually bothered to completely swim or go any further than splashing some water over himself while he stood ankle-deep in the water.

So when the opportunity arose to have an actual fucking bath in an actual fucking inn, Trevor gladly slid his share of the expense over, ignoring Alucard and Sypha's bewildered expressions.

"It may come as a surprise that I like to be clean," grumbled Trevor.

"Well, maybe you should have the honour of first bath," said Alucard.

"I'll make the water horrible," said Trevor.

"That is true," mused Sypha. "Perhaps we should go first?"

Alucard shook his head.

"No, I insist, we can arrange for some food and drink, and bring it up when Trevor is drying his clothes."

Sypha seemed to be content with this plan.

"Well, we can always drain the tub and boil some ice," she said.

And with that decision made, Trevor was the first to head upstairs, tucking himself into the cosy room they had rented for the night. A wooden tub sat on some cloth, steam rising from it as a maid poured the last of the water in.

"I'll be just a moment, sir," she said, tipping in another bucket. "It's fresh and hot."

Trevor, who hadn't expected anyone in the room, let alone someone who called him 'sir' nodded and gave her an awkward thanks.

"You won't want to linger if your companions are also bathing, or it'll go cold," said the maid.

She left and Trevor latched the door, not wanting to be interrupted. The heavy wood prevented anyone from coming in. Anyone human or non-magical, that was. If it was truly important, then Alucard or Sypha could easily blast the door away if needed.

With little fanfare, Trevor stripped and laid out his weapons and clothes neatly to be cleaned up after.

Then he stepped into the tub, nearly moaning in content as the water and the heat eased into sore muscles, and Trevor brought his feet up so they rested just over the lip of the tub. With his feet up, it was almost perfect. The tub could have been a bit bigger but at least it was full.

Sliding down the side, Trevor let his head go under the water for a moment. His hair tickled his nape as it floated about him and he swept it back so it went in his eyes when he came back up. It was nice. Niceness was a feeling he hadn't indulged in for a long time and had almost forgotten.

Then Trevor popped back up, and opened his eyes.

Right in time for his body spasm once, followed by a sensation of lightheadedness, and a shiver that ran from his spine to his toes as he felt and saw his legs _fuse together into a fish tail._ He yelped, backing away as it became too large for the tub and hooked over the edge. A splash of water sprayed the floor and Sypha's travelling robes, and Trevor winced at the thought of getting her robes dirty.

Then a prickling sensation was hot on his back and he curled away from the wooden planks to find instant relief now there was no pressure on his spine. A crest of spiked fins stood upright in alarm, starting between his shoulders and running all the way down his tail.

Being a professional, Trevor didn't scream.

He did start swearing.

Water had begun to spill on the floor from the displacement of Trevor's new tail, and he tried to stay still so no more of it could make a mess of the floor.

"Fuck," said Trevor, rather eloquently because what else was there to say in this situation?

He poked the tail, just to make sure it was his. He could feel it. He could feel himself poking the scales. The scales twitched, and they were as warm and hot blooded as his body on a normal day. The tail was definitely his. And his legs were definitely not there.

Trevor swore again.

He was pretty much stuck in the tub, the end of the tail sticking out like a poorly made soup. Trevor stared at his scales as he slid his hands beneath the water, following the line of his sides as he went lower and lower until skin gave way to scales, and he could feel fins on his hips.

"Fuck!"

He definitely needed Sypha and Alucard for this one.

He lifted his hands out, and gripped the edges of the bath to haul himself out. Having no legs made it an unnecessarily wriggly affair, but Trevor had always been able to throw himself around like it was no thing so it wasn't impossible. He flopped onto the floor face first, and casually flipped the tub off.

Trevor had never claimed to be graceful.

He pushed himself onto his forearms and craned his neck around to stare at himself. Bright red scales started at his waist with such seamlessness that if it wasn't his own damn body then Trevor would have assumed they were there all of his life. They started light and slipped into the deeper red that matched his usual waist wrap, and then finally became a red so dark it was almost black.

As Trevor rolled over to sit up against the tub, the scales flashed gold in the light, revealing smaller bands of flecked iridescence that reminded him of bee stripes.

Red and gold. Belmont colours. God had a sick sense of humour. Or whoever had done this had.

He curled the tail – his tail – up, the frilled fins a light, brassy gold and red like the main body of his tail, at one angle seeming red and the other gold. They flipped and twitched, Trevor's alarm reflected in their movements.

It was beautiful. Something that would be more suitable for Alucard.

Trevor stopped looking at it, not wanting to acknowledge that he'd turned into some kind of freak. Alucard and Sypha would surely be up soon, and Trevor had to unlock the door lest they panic and demolish it. He had complete faith in their abilities to undo this.

Trevor rolled onto his front. His body was slippery, like he'd been oiled, his tail particularly smooth. This made getting a grip on the floor nearly impossible, so Trevor was reduced to dragging himself using his forearms, and he grumbled out another, "Fuck" for good measure. It felt like his tail was flipping and twitching like a goddamn carp as he struggled to push himself forward with it.

Ten exhausting minutes later, Trevor was leaning against the door. He'd wait for Alucard and Sypha to come up before knocking the latch open, lest the maid come up first for some reason and promptly panic at the sight of a fish-tailed man on the floor.

Water still soaked Trevor's hair, dripping off him to pool in his lap.

He'd barely thought about it before but now that he was waiting, Trevor wondered: where the fuck did my dick go?

There was a clear bulge between where his dick had been, but his trail of hair had turned into scales, the sharp jut of his hips pointing to nothing but more scales.

Before Trevor could go any further with this weird dick hunt (certainly not the kind of hunt he usually associated with "dick hunt"), there was a knock on the door.

"Trevor, it's us. We have dinner for you," said Sypha. "Let us in."

"Of course, just let me–" Trevor lifted himself high enough to slap the chock out of the latch, a feat that was harder than it sounded and relied on a fair amount of core strength.

"Before you come in, you have to promise not to be angry," said Trevor.

Of course this put Sypha and Alucard on full alert – and Trevor nearly got smacked in the face by the door as it flew open. It pushed him over to the side as Alucard entered. The man probably hadn't even noticed the weight of Trevor against it, due to his vampiric strength.

"What did you do this tim–oh," said Alucard.

Alucard stared at Trevor, gaze examining every detail. One eyebrow quirked up, and Trevor knew that was Alucard's way of asking "what the fuck?" without actually asking.

"I didn't do this deliberately!" protested Trevor.

"Didn't do what? I swear, Belmont, if you've destroyed anything again, I'll–" began Sypha, but she paused, her mouth opening in a perfect o-shape, before she closed the door and exclaimed, "You're a mermaid!"

"There's nothing maidenly about him," said Alucard.

"He's a mermaid!"

"I'm not a mermaid," said Trevor.

Sypha clapped her hands in delight and kneeled next to Trevor, eyes roaming, hands eager to follow but kept in her lap.

"May I touch?"

Trevor nodded.

"You're so smooth," said Sypha, stroking the scales.

"When were you cursed?" asked Alucard.

Trevor blinked. He had been cursed quite a few times in his life but he had dealt with every one of them. Or so he thought. There had to be another one but this just didn't make sense.

"I don't know," Trevor admitted.

"It had to be recent," said Alucard.

"Well, this only happened when I submerged myself in the tub."

"So only a recent curse."

There was an awkward silence before Trevor murmured, "I haven't used a bath in years. I just scrubbed down with a cloth."

"So not a recent curse at all," said Sypha. "Well, that makes things harder."

She lifted a fin, spreading it gently so it was arranged on her lap like a fan.

"But you're a mermaid, what an exciting curse!" she said.

She neatly dodged Trevor bringing his tail up to swat at her lightly.

"I'm not a mermaid!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't abandoned Blood of Ice, I just needed to write some comedy and fluff.
> 
> Also, [this fic started as a page of sketches](https://twitter.com/armouredescort/status/1109802260341485569?s=21)


	2. Chapter 2

It took quite a bit for them to settle, and not without a good deal of sniping at one another. Sypha was thrilled – even though it was a curse, it was a very interesting curse, and "interesting curses can always be broken with a bit of study."

Trevor found it in himself not to argue otherwise, especially since his tail hadn't vanished and he was at her mercy to fix it.

So instead he flopped back on the floor, allowing Sypha to prod and play until the floor got too hard and he complained.

"I would really rather be on the bed if you're going to continue with this," said Trevor.

"You'll make the bed wet," Sypha said, laying her hand over the end of his tail fins, tracing them with her fingers. "And no, I will not dry it with my magic."

"Then at least let me get off the floor."

Trevor moved, pulling his tail out of Sypha's hands as he tried to hoist himself into the lone chair provided by the inn. Instead he knocked it over.

Alucard, who had been standing by the fire, looked vaguely amused, the absolute bastard. Like always it seemed that enjoying Trevor's misery came naturally to him.

"Would you like to be picked up?" he asked.

"No," said Trevor. "I rather like flopping about like a fish about to be brained on a riverbank. Of course I want to be picked up, you shitcunt."

"No need for profanity," said Alucard.

He scooped Trevor up so easily that he might as well have picked up Sypha too. But he didn't and Trevor slung an arm around Alucard's neck in case Alucard decided to drop him, so Trevor could at least drag the self-satisfied prick to the floor with him.

One arm was holding Trevor under the crook of where his knees used to be, and the other around his back. He felt a little ridiculous but Alucard was carrying him like it was nothing, so taking advantage of the ride was nearly worth being held in the first place.

"I am under a lot of stress right now," said Trevor.

"Not enough to prevent you from coming up with creative swears like 'shitcunt'," said Alucard.

Trevor turned his head to face Alucard fully, shoving in close for effect.

"As I said, I'm stressed. It's been a long day, and coming up with new things to call you is a good release to that. I think I have the right to complain," said Trevor.

Fuck, Alucard was beautiful up close. It was like his eyelashes were dusted in gold, his skin soft and too fresh for a vampire.

"I don't even know where my dick went!" hissed Trevor.

Alucard locked eye contact with Trevor, then slid his gaze downwards.

"It's still there."

"Don't look!"

"It's nice," said Alucard and the worst part was that he sounded _sincere_. "Strong Belmont breeding, I suppose."

With heat rising on his cheeks, Trevor looked away in embarrassment, his free hand moving into his lap to cover his general crotch area even though he knew nothing was visible. There was nothing but the implication of a dick. A rather large implication, judging by Alucard's tone.

For all of his life experience, most of it was based in how to fight his way out of a situation rather than gather down with the locals as a friendly stranger bedding a new partner for every night they were in town. So sex and genitalia were fairly foreign to him. Trevor didn't know what was average or not.

"I wouldn't know," said Trevor at the same time Sypha interjected, "I wonder how it works being hidden away like that?"

"Sypha!" said Trevor, shocked.

He couldn't think of anything else to say – Sypha wasn't an innocent girl but the forward and curious bluntness wasn't something Trevor had quite gotten used to. If she had something to say, she would say it. Especially if it involved something she wanted to learn about.

"She has a point," said Alucard.

"Alright, I think I prefer being on the floor. A good braining sounds perfect right about now," said Trevor, staring at the ceiling so he didn't have to look at either of their beautiful, teasing faces. "Fuck the prophecy, it didn't say anything about taking a fish in to slap Dracula with."

Then he felt the same curious spasm and tingling sensation as he had when he first transformed.

"Interesting," said Alucard.

Trevor resisted the urge to cuss out his travelling companions as they oohed over his legs returning. Or perhaps they were looking at his cock. At any rate, it seemed like the curse had a horrible sense of timing.

Alucard put Trevor down, who wobbled for a moment before regaining his balance. Sypha handed Trevor a towel, although it didn't seem he needed it to dry off. He was perfectly dry, except maybe for some residual dampness through his hair.

"Now that you have two legs again, I am curious as to whether you washed or not," said Sypha.

"I was, unfortunately, preoccupied," said Trevor, wrapping the towel around his waist. "Being some sort of fish man."

He refused to say mermaid. Or merman. Merman wasn't much better.

"A merman," said Sypha.

"Yes, okay, fine," said Trevor. "A scaly fuck with no legs and a predilection for wriggling violently."

He put his hand over his eyes and sighed. That seemed to be becoming a habit. It was hard to focus with two gorgeous, highly intelligent and talented people cross-examining him.

"But you're not clean," said Sypha.

"If you warm the water up, I promise I will wash properly and you can see the pretty tail again."

Sypha pretended that she was only interested for the magic and the intricacies of the curse and made some words of, "We should test the parameters of how much water it takes to change" but Trevor knew she was enthralled by the tail.

Alucard put on a much better face of disinterest, but even he was watching as Trevor slid into the tub again, freshly reheated with Sypha's magic. For a few minutes, nothing seemed to be happening.

Then it returned. Now that he was paying attention, Trevor could feel the tremor in his veins and spark the moment before he transformed. He wondered if he could prevent it if he caught it early enough.

"Didn't even have to go under this time," said Trevor, grumpily and carefully extracting his tail to hang over the tub. It was too uncomfortable, otherwise.

Sypha immediately pounced "in the name of science" and Alucard moved closer after a few moments as well. It seemed the glimmer and shine of his tail was just too much to resist. Trevor thought that this would have been boring to Alucard, since he literally grew up with Dracula and had a working knowledge of most of the creatures they came across. A fish tail wasn't exactly exotic when compared with the Night Horde.

He started to wash as best he could, ignoring that his companions were practically cuddling his tail. Well, Sypha was, at least. Trevor could tell Alucard wanted to, though, and that was all that mattered.

"So we've at least figured out that I can change back," said Trevor. "If I'm mostly dry, then that won't be a problem. It seems like I need direct contact with the water on most of my body, if not all of it."

The best start to figuring out a curse were untangling the parameters of it. Trevor didn't intend to keep turning into a fucking fish person every time he got submerged, although considering how long it had taken him to do that was a pretty good indicator of how frequently this would be a problem.

If he was lucky, he could avoid it entirely.

That's not how curses were broken. It usually involved making up to the person that cast the curse (or killing them, the more brutal route), but Trevor had no clue who did this or when this had happened.

"Considering we don't get the chance to bathe often, I don't think this will be a frequent issue," said Sypha. "Since you've never transformed whilst washing."

She was looking at him thoughtfully, and Trevor knew she was drawing on all of her magical experience to fix this. However there was also the not entirely unlikely possibility that they wouldn't be able to break the curse. Not knowing the origin made it much harder.

The motivations of the curse were unclear. He was being punished, but for what? Accidentally taking someone's prize trout for dinner? Not helping someone into their cart? Being thrown into a fish stall by a naga and causing a fistfight when the local beggars stole the spilt product?

That last one sounded like a fair assumption but everyone involved had backed down when the naga had poisoned the fishmonger. Trevor had managed to save the man.

If the fishmonger had gone to a witch to curse him, then that would have been spectacularly unfair, Trevor felt. He was brash and offensive and a lot of people wanted him dead but wanting him dead and actually dealing into a curse to ruin his life were two different things. The former was easy, the latter involved magic and money and the willingness to sacrifice something of yourself, not something many people had in large supply.

"Well as long as Dracula doesn't decide to turn his castle into a swimming pool, we should be fine," said Trevor, scrubbing himself down. "And I can avoid getting too wet."

"Well now that you've said that, it will be inevitable that the rest of our journey will be rainy," said Alucard.

Trevor threw the cleaning brush at Alucard, who caught it and smiled while Sypha rolled her eyes and offered to wash Trevor's hair.

"Be careful, you won't know what manner of crawlies you'll find," said Alucard, continuing his gentle teasing.

Trevor flicked the last of the water from the tip of his tail and splashed Alucard square in the face.

***

Trevor was helped out of the tub and onto towels before being left to dry face-down on the bed. Alucard had almost put him on his back but Trevor felt the spines on his back brush the sheets and insisted on not squashing them. He felt soft and safe, drowsy even, his fins arranged next to him so they weren't pinned under his own weight.

Sypha had elected to use a bathing screen around the tub – not because she was uncomfortable being nude with Alucard and Trevor, but because Alucard seemed uncomfortable with her being nude.

"It's just polite," said Alucard, adamantly maintaining eye contact with Sypha.

"So where were your manners when I was nude? I mean, you've seen my dick already, so I don't really care," said Trevor. "Don't you like how Sypha looks?"

"I do like how Sypha looks, I just thought she might like the privacy," Alucard said.

"How about I put the screen up so we can hang our clothes out?" suggested Sypha in a sweet and innocent tone.

Which was how they ended up with her undergarments at Alucard's eye level.

Trevor snorted as he looked over his shoulder to see what had made Alucard turn slightly pink. It was like Alucard hadn't seen them before.

"You like her," said Trevor and promptly got pushed into the pillows, which only prompted a muffled, "Aw, you _really_ like her."

"I can hear you," said Sypha.

She somehow made the splashing sound a lot more sensuous than it actually was.

She was probably working the grit from her toenails or something. Speaker sandals didn't protect their feet from mud and dirt.

"Oh no, she knows you like her!" said Trevor, still yelling into the pillow to be heard.

Alucard scowled and traced his finger down Trevor's spine, brushing against the frill of spines on Trevor's back. They flared up.

Trevor let out a breathy gasp and bucked, slapping Alucard's hand away.

"Don't touch that again," he said. "Not like that."

Alucard relented and instead helped Trevor to dry off the rest of the way to bring back his legs.

Trevor aptly didn't mention that Alucard was still blushing, since it was probably leftover embarrassment from being teased about Sypha.

Probably.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now that I've put the exchange into writing, [here's the art](https://twitter.com/armouredescort/status/1109802260341485569?s=21) that started it all.


End file.
